<p>This article focuses on the question of how ‘inner experience’ is expressed in a&#xa0;scientific setting. Using the example of the Würzburg School, it can first be shown that, unlike in traditional methods of contemporary qualitative social research, the process of recording data by the experimenter consisted of a&#xa0;dialogical negotiation of meanings. Whereas in the Würzburg School the experimenter and the test subjects belong to the same group—i.e. the test subjects are themselves scientists and are familiar with the hypotheses of the study—in social science research, one must normally assume a&#xa0;difference in status between researchers and test subjects. Using the example of psychoanalysis, and drawing on writings and notes, some of which were published posthumously from Siegfried Bernfeld′s estate, an interaction between researchers and test subjects is presented that is modelled on everyday conversation and is aimed at enabling the negotiation of meaning through a&#xa0;dialogue that takes into account not only the researcher′s but also the subject′s relevance structures. Following Bernfeld′s investigation of the question of the actual facts of observation in the psychoanalytic setting, the concept of introspection is ultimately rejected as inadequate for a&#xa0;social-scientific understanding of ‘inner experience’ and replaced by the concept of description. The insight that there can be no ‘true’ verbal version of inner experience but only one that is possible in communication with others allows dialogical research to better do justice to the class-specific plurality of descriptions of experience.</p>